Integrity

Mr. Reagan is “a firm and unbending politician for whom words and deeds are one and the same.” This assessment found in East German secret police files provides future generations with a lasting example of integrity. These files must have reached the attention of Iranian leaders who released fifty-two American hostages held for fourteen months — on the very day Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981. His reputation for integrity meant all parties could anticipate a swift and sure response from a man of principle. Those files, recovered after the ransacking of the Stassi headquarters in Berlin, now hang …
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The life of a minister is the life of his ministry.” This adage is as true now as ever. In fact, ministerial integrity is an indispensable element of any sustained credibility among a discerning people with whom we have pastoral intimacy. Such intimacy leaves us vulnerable to be known for who and what we really are in relationship to the saving truth in which we traffic. A pastor-flock relationship characterized by the biblical description in which mutual intimacy is essential (John 10:14), consistent and comprehensive integrity is imperative if one is to have a ministry that is both compelling and …
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The talk shows were buzzing recently about a sex education class in a Maryland school that had students chew a stick of gum, then pass it around so that everyone in the class chewed it. This learning activity was supposed to make some kind of point, never specified, about sexually-transmitted diseases. It turns out, this gross-out exercise was not the brainchild of some left-wing progressive educational theorist. The communal gum-chewing was sponsored by a Christian “faith-based” group that was allowed to come into the classroom to teach about abstinence.
In fact, the “gum game” has its origins in evangelical …
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In the present age of general laxity and departure from the orthodox Christian faith, one of the great needs is the return to doctrinal integrity. In particular, men who stand behind the sacred pulpit, should be men who teach the truth and nothing but the truth of God’s Word. One of the most pressing needs of the world of darkness, which is so full of falsehood, is the clear declaration of the truth of God’s Word.
Satan’s temptation of Eve was in the area of doctrinal integrity. He dared to accuse God of lack of integrity. With the fall of …
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Baked ham or turkey is a traditional favorite on the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner tables of most American homes. And many of us enjoy an occasional steak or Sunday pot roast. For thousands of years, humanity as a whole has feasted on fish or fowl or various animals. Until the rise of the animal rights movement in recent years, no one has questioned the legitimacy of killing these creatures for food.
Yet, in most cultures, from the dawn of time murder of another human being has been a punishable crime. Why is this? Why do we distinguish between the killing …
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Several years ago I was participating in a discussion with some business men in Jackson, Mississippi. In the course of the conversation, one of the men made reference to a man who was not present at the meeting. He said, “He is an honorable man.” When I heard this comment, my ears perked up as I thought for a moment I was hearing a foreign language being spoken. I realized that I was in the middle of the Deep South where customs of old had not entirely been eradicated, yet I still could not get over that somebody in this …
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What will people say about me after I die?” Have you ever asked yourself that question? It is a question that has haunted me for years, and it is one of the most captivating questions anyone can ask himself. In truth, it would do us good to ask ourselves such questions with some frequency: “What will I contribute to the world, the church, and the kingdom of God before I die?” Such questions, the hard questions concerning death, are in fact the very questions of life. In asking ourselves questions about the reality of our lives in the eyes …
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More than 120 years before the American Revolution, the charter of Harvard College was established. But the “Rules and Precepts” of the college adopted in 1646 show that the leaders saw education (and all of life) as an arena in which God was central, and theology they considered the crown jewel of the arts and sciences. Almost 350 years later, the professors of law, ethics, theology, and history at this esteemed institution hold convictions and teach perspectives that would chill the already cold bones of the school’s founders, not to mention those godly people who endowed the school with their …
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